Policing For Profit Takes Cash From Innocent Drivers

Updated: June 6, 2011 10:15 PM CDTVan Huynh

Carmina Perez

By Phil Williams
Chief Investigative ReporterNASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Imagine being stopped on the interstate and put into handcuffs because police think you're carrying too much cash. Even worse, imagine them keeping the money you've been saving for months.

Police insist most of the cash they take is drug money.

But NewsChannel 5 Investigates discovered some innocent victims of a practice that critics call "policing for profit."

Among them: Vietnamese immigrant Van Huynh, who found his American dream in a nail salon he opened in Texarkana, Texas.

"Was that a big moment for you to become a citizen?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked.

"Oh, yeah," he answered in broken English. "I very happy."

Huynh came to the U.S. in 1999, becoming an American citizen seven years later.

But nothing prepared him for what he'd encounter when he got stopped by DICE -- the Dickson Interdiction and Criminal Enforcement unit.

Huynh was on his way back to Texas after a long trip to Virginia where he'd hoped to pay cash for his third nail salon.

He recalled that agents had plenty of questions: "You have any guns? You have any drugs? You have any money? You have anything? I said no, no."

Huynh admitted that he did not tell the officers that he had money "because too much cash, I don't want to have trouble because I'm in hurry on the way home."

What Huynh did not know was that DICE gets its funding -- thanks to a Tennessee law that lets police take cash off of drivers if they have reason to suspect that it's drug money.

After he gave them permission to search his vehicle, officers discovered a bag. Inside it, they found $50,000 cash wrapped in aluminum foil.

Still, Huynh thought it was his right as an American citizen to tell the police it was none of their business.

"You told them, I don't want to talk about it, I just want to go," we wanted to know.

"Yeah, yeah."

"And that didn't work, did it?"

"That didn't work."

"They took you to police headquarters?"

"Yes. Yes, sir."

"In handcuffs?"

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir."

There, inside Dickson police headquarters, detectives questioned Huynh for four hours, demanding that he prove why he was traveling with so much cash. DICE documents show that Huynh was stopped at 8:44 a.m., but the cash was not returned until after 1 p.m.

Veteran Nashville lawyer Gary Blackburn, who has filed numerous civil rights cases, says the officers' approach "suggests that the mere possession of money makes you a criminal, which is absurd."

He added that what's really outrageous about the Huynh case is that 50,000 Americans gave their lives supposedly to bring freedom to Vietnam.

"Then one of those persons comes here for freedom and is subjected to an attempted shakedown, it looks like, by police officers," Blackburn added. "No one should have to endure that."

It also happened to Carmina Perez and her 10-year-old son just after they crossed the Tennessee River into Decatur County. The two were on the way to see Perez's mother in Texas and her father-in-law in Mexico.

"He kept calling me a liar," Perez told NewsChannel 5 Investigates. "He kept saying that we Mexicans we all have a reputation of being drug smugglers, that that's what I was going to use it for. I kept telling him no."

After four hours on the side of the road, agents took Perez's money, forcing the family to cancel their trip home.

"It took me months to save that money, and it hurt me the way they treated me and the way they treated my son," she recalled. "It hurt me and it still does."

And she's not alone.

Our NewsChannel 5 investigation found case-after-case where other innocent people also had their cash taken by people who are supposed to be enforcing the law.

Shelby County:Memphis police took $32,000 from an African-American woman -- money she'd been saving for a down payment on a building that she planned to buy the next day. A state administrative law judge later called it "highly inappropriate ... to deprive a citizen of her property based simply on such speculation and conjecture."

Hamilton County:A sheriff's deputy seized $28,000 from a Vietnamese businessman -- money that the man had borrowed to buy a restaurant. A judge later ruled that was "not the proceeds from the sale of drugs."

Bradley County:Police took $20,000 from an African-American man who had won the Georgia Lottery. The man said he had been to Knoxville trying to buy a car. A judge later ruled "there was no proof that Claimant had any connection with illegal drugs."

In another case, police seized $31,000 from a Korean businessman who had collected the money as repayment of a loan. A judge later ruled that "there was no 'reasonable suspicion' or 'probable cause' to make the traffic stop."

Also, in Bradley County, a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer took $135,504from an African-American businessman who had been using cash to buy flooded properties in New Orleans. The money was returned after the state failed to pursue the case.

Monroe County: Police confiscated $17,300 from three Hispanic men. They were about to wire the money to family in El Salvador to buy a house. A judge later ruled that "there was absolutely no proof that Claimants sold any drugs."

Sullivan County: An interdiction team took $27,500 from a Hispanic man. He was transporting the money his mother had saved to Virginia, where she'd moved from California. The state later returned the money to the woman.

Gary Blackburn said those cases show there's something wrong with a system that has officers policing for profit.

"That badge is a testament that you are part of the system to protect people, it is part of the law," he added. "That badge is not a commission to seize money."

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Perez, "So how long did it take you to get your money back?"

"It took me about two years," she answered.

As to how many innocent people are searched and detained in the search for cash, no one knows for sure -- since most agencies claim they don't keep such records.

We asked Van Huynh, "Are you surprised that this happens in America?"

"Oh, very surprised," the Vietnamese immigrant responded.

Interdiction teams insist there are protections.

After officers take money that suspect is drug money, they have to get a judge to sign off on the seizures. Still, those judges have to take the officers' word and, as we saw in the cases we uncovered, it can often take innocent people more than a year to get their cash back.

Defense attorneys also tell me that sometimes people don't bother trying to fight the seizures because hiring an attorney might be so expensive that it's not even worth it.

A reasonable person, upon review of the facts in this matter, would surely conclude that Sheriff Joe is right, and Esquire is dead wrong!Los Angeles, November 1 - Joseph Zernik, PhD, of Human Rights Alert (NGO), has stated his support of the opinion, recently publish by the panel instituted by Arizona's maverick Sheriff Joe, and in opposition of Esquire's opinion in the ongoing scandal surrounding the publication of fraud for Obama's long-form Birth Certificates, [i] and use of multiplicity of Social Security numbers. [ii]

Dr Zernik has gained substantial experience over the past decade in analyzing fraud in government and banking records in the United States. His opinions in this matter have been adopted by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, peer-reviewed and published in computer science and criminology journals, and presented in international conferences. [iii]

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist to read the findings and the various experts reports and evaluate the facts for yourself," concludes Dr Zernik, "Mr Obama has a long and convoluted relationship with FBI and the corrupt US justice system..." [iv]

Sources close to the investigation say the posse has decided it needs to see original birth records before it can conclude whether Obama should be eligible for the presidential ballot in 2012, not an electronic file or scanned copies.

The sources say the panel needs to examine the microfilm documenting Obama's birth, as well as the ink-and-paper original 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health is holding in its vault.

The PDF file and various scanned copies of the birth certificate that the White House released April 27 are simply not good enough, the posse has determined.

What the Hell Is a Long-Form Birth Certificate?

It proves that Obama was born here. Again. A handy guide.

By Paul Schrodt

Read more:http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/what-is/long-form-birth-certificate-5649302#ixzz1cSKra83k
_______
Joseph Zernik, PhDHuman Rights Alert (NGO)
The 2010 submission of Human Rights Alert to the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations was reviewed by the HRC professional staff and incorporated in the official HRC Professional Staff Report with a note referring to “corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California.”
_______ Flag Counter:126http://inproperinla.blogspot.com/http://inproperinla.wordpress.com/http://human-rights-alert.blogspot.com/Total Reads: 619,060Followers: 1,105http://www.scribd.com/Human_Rights_Alerthttp://twitter.com/inproperinlahttp://www.liveleak.com/user/jz12345Total Item Views:566,338http://www.examiner.com/x-38742-LA-Business-Headlines-Examiner_____________________________WHAT DID THE EXPERT SAY ABOUT THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS?
* Foreclosure fraud: The homeowner nightmares continueCNN (April 7, 2011)* About 3 million homes have been repossessed since the housing boom ended in 2006… That number could balloon to about 6 million by 2013Bloomberg (January 2011)
* "...a system in which only the little people have to obey the law, while the rich, and bankers especially, can cheat and defraud without consequences."http://www.scribd.com/doc/50753639/Prof Paul Krugman, MIT (2011)
_____________________________WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA?* "...judges tried and sentenced a staggering number of people for crimes they did not commit." Prof David Burcham, Dean, Loyola Law School, LA (2001)http://www.scribd.com/doc/29043589/* "This is conduct associated with the most repressive dictators and police states... and judges must share responsibility when innocent people are convicted." Prof Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, Irvine Law School (2001) http://www.scribd.com/doc/27433920/* "Innocent people remain in prison"* "...the LA Superior Court and the DA office, the two other parts of the justice system that the Blue Panel Report recommends must be investigated relative to the integrity of the system, have not produced any response that we know of..."LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)http://www.scribd.com/doc/24902306/_____________________________
WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN CALIFORNIA?* "...corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California." United Nations Human Rights Council Staff Report (2010)http://www.scribd.com/doc/38566837/_____________________________
WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE STATE COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES?
* "On July 26, 2010, Laurence Tribe, Senior Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, Access to Justice Initiative, delivered an important speech to the Conference of Chief Justices, challenging them to halt the disintegration of our state justice systems before they become indistinguishable from courts of third world nations."Prof Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School (2010), per National Defender Leadership Institute (2010)http://www.nlada.net/library/article/national_dojspeechto%20chiefjustice07-26-2010_gideonalert
_____________________________WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES?* "More than 100 law professors have signed on to a letter released today that proposes congressional hearings and legislation aimed at fashioning "mandatory and enforceable" ethics rules for Supreme Court justices for the first time. The effort, coordinated by the liberal Alliance for Justice, was triggered by "recent media reports," the letter said, apparently referring to stories of meetings and other potential conflicts of interest involving Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas among others."More than 100 law professors, as reported by the Blog of the Legal Times (February 2011)http://www.scribd.com/doc/49586436/_____________________________WHAT DID CHIEF JUDGE OF THE US COURT OF APPEALS, 5TH CIRCUIT, SAY ABOUT THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM?
* "The American legal system has been corrupted almost beyond recognition..."
Chief Judge, US Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, Edith Jones, speaking before the Federalist Society of Harvard Law School (February 2003)http://www.scribd.com/doc/50137887/_____________________________WHAT DID THE CHAIR OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SAY ABOUT THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM?* In a speech in Georgetown University, Senator Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" on the US Department of Justice.Transcript of Senator Leahy speech (2009)http://www.scribd.com/doc/38472251/

11-12-10 Where should Occupy go next? Civil Disobedience in the footsteps of Thoreau and Gandhi!http:// www.scribd.com/doc/75348301/12-06-08 Courts and Judges as racketeering enterprises under RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) - key element in the current financial crisishttp://www.scribd.com/doc/96504009/Secede! The US in its current form is simply unmanageable...

What did the experts say?

* דוח סייג לזכויות האדם נכלל בדוח התקופתי של האו"ם לגבי זכויות האדם בישראל (2013), בלוויית ההערה: "חוסר יושרה בכתבים האלקטרוניים של בית המשפט העליון, בתי המשפט המחוזיים, ובתי הדין למוחזקי משמורת בישראל".* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2010 Periodic Review Report regarding Humnan Rights in the United States, with the note: "corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California".* The Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations was incorporated into the 2013 Periodic Review Report regarding Humnan Rights in Israel, with the note: "lack of integrity of the electronic records of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees courts in Israel."

The United States

* "...it's difficult to find a fraud of this size on the U.S. court system in U.S. history... where you have literally tens of thousands of fraudulent documents filed in tens of thousands of cases." Raymond Brescia, a visiting professor at Yale Law School

* Los Angeles County is"the epicenter of the epidemic of real estate and mortgage fraud."FBI (2004)

* “…judges tried and sentenced a staggering number of people for crimes they did not commit."Prof David Burcham, Loyola Law School, LA (2000)

* “This is conduct associated with the most repressive dictators and police states… and judges must share responsibility when innocent people are convicted.”Prof Erwin Chemerinksy, Irvine Law School (2000)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/239647129/The HRA submission was incorporated into the 2015 HRC Professional Staff Report on the United States with the note: :“HRA NGO recommended restoring the integrity of the IT systems of the courts, under accountability to the Congress, with the goal of making such systems as transparent as possible to the public at large.”

[2] Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission for the 2013 UPR of the State of Israel was incorporated into the UN Human Rights Council Professional Staff Report with the note: "Lack of integrity in the electronic record systems of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees' courts in Israel".

2012-06-04 Human Right Alert's Submission; 2013 UPR of the State of Israel: Integrity, or lack thereof, of the

[3] Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission for the 2010 UPR of the United States was incorporated into the UN Human Rights Council Professional Staff Report with the note: "Corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California."

2010-04-19 Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the

2010 Review (UPR) of Human Rights in the United States as incorporated into the UPR staff report:

[1] 10-10-01 United Nations Human Rights Council Records for 2010 Review (UPR) of Human Rights in the United States, where Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission was incorporated with a note referring to "corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California."http://www.scribd.com/doc/38566837/http://www.scribd.com/doc/108663259/